While Seaside’s downtown is not yet thriving, it appears help is on the way.

The multimillion dollar work to revitalize Seaside’s lower Broadway Avenue – essentially, Seaside’s downtown – has been completed on the city’s part: There are now only two lanes for traffic, the sidewalks have been widened, trees have been planted and bike lanes have been added. But business is not yet booming.

Darryl Choates, a former Seaside councilmember and owner of the jazz bar Deja Blue, wants to change that. He invited local business owners to his club May 17 to discuss the topic of a vacancy tax on the city’s commercial properties. “It’s not our goal to tax you, it’s our goal for you to either lease, rent, or sell the damn place,” Choates says.

Seaside councilmember Alexis García-Arrazola approached City Attorney Sheri Damon last year about the idea – he was also interested in a vacancy tax on residences as well – but the City Council tabled the idea when Damon reported back that implementing such a tax would require approval from the voters.

Nonetheless, García-Arrazola says he’s committed to exploring the idea again, as enabling a thriving downtown and business community was one of his campaign promises in 2020.

Choates says a potential workaround could be tacking on a fee to vacant commercial spaces – not a tax – as they require taxpayer-funded resources like police and fire. Damon, however, says such a fee would have to be very specific as to what resources it was funding, and that city services like fire and police would have to be excluded.

Meanwhile, on the private sector side, there is exciting progress in downtown Seaside. Klaus Georis’ long-planned Maligne restaurant is slated to open next month on Broadway, and just nearby on the corner of Del Monte Boulevard and Palm Street, Doug Wiele – who built the Trader Joe’s development in Monterey and later redeveloped the adjacent Cooper Molera Adobe site – submitted plans to Seaside on May 6 seeking to redevelop the long-vacant Seaside Market property. As initially proposed, Wiele’s company Foothill Partners would build a four-story, mixed-used development with 32 apartments upstairs and mostly fast-casual style eateries on the ground floor. The plans also include a rooftop bar and restaurant, where one could also order food from below.

Wiele is confident the existing water meter can meet the project’s needs, so it wouldn’t be slowed by the cease and desist order for Cal Am’s illegal overpumping of the Carmel River.

And Wiele is excited about the prospect of investing in Seaside’s future: “It’s becoming a cool place.”